Communication systems, such as wireless communication systems, provide one or more communication networks that allow user terminals or mobile stations (users) to move within the network without losing the ability to continue or have communication with the network. To provide a network, a wireless communication relies on stations to transmit signals to users. However, each station has limited coverage due to the limitation on signal strength and the fact the signal strength degrades over distance. As the distance between users and stations increases, the strength of the signal received becomes lower and the transmission quality becomes lower. Additionally, signal quality and coverage may be affected by factors such as physical structures, signal interference, weather, transmission conditions, formats, etc. Therefore, coverage gaps or “holes” may exist and users in those areas may have limited or no network access.
One solution to avoid or reduce coverage holes is to provide more base stations to enhance the communication coverage and system capacity. However, system cost increases as the number of stations increases. As an alternative solution, a communication network may rely on relay stations, such as those implementing the concept of multi-hop relaying (MR). However, in some applications, the use of relaying stations may increase the need for station-to-station handovers and may require increased process overhead for handovers due to limited coverage areas of each relay station. In some applications, it also may reduce the spectrum efficiency because multiple transmissions are needed for multi-hop relays.